E Commerce in Retail

As we have all seen in the past 10 or more years the popularity of ecommerce has been growing more and more and faster than ever. As businesses are opening up and setting up the ground work to be successful they are not just thinking about the best location to open or their target customer. They now need to think about making sure they have a website set up and have the ability to shop online. Retailers have seen their businesses sales increase over the years by adding this as an option. While the mom and pop retailers and big box retailers (WalMart/ Best Buy/ Target) all see their biggest selling day on Black Friday. Online retailers get their big hit on cyber Monday. According to Forrester's recent State of Online Retailing report, web retailers experienced 28 percent year-over-year growth in 2012. Combined with the fact that digital consumers spent $1.46 billion on Cyber Monday (a new single-day record), last year's steep growth curve is a bellwether of another good year for online apparel retailers.[1] With consumers now being busier than ever we know longer have the time to get out to the malls or big box stores and utilize coupons and discounts available. Retailers are now giving online coupons and discount codes to be used specifically online. I can tell you from personal experience with 2 children, working full time and now going to school I am so grateful for the option to online shop. As I mentioned above even if the consumer is shopping online they still want to be offered a deal. One of the things that I found while shopping on line is "Ebates". When you sign up for ebates (free service) you select the stores you enjoy shopping in the most. So for example if you wanted to shop at the Gap you would log onto the ebates site and select The Gap. Ebates would then tell give you a % that you would receive back when you shop directly through them. This provides you with a means to save some additional money when you can't get to the store to take advantage of their sales. Ebates has made deals with more than 1,500 stores. Let’s take Target, for example. If Ebates refers a shopper to Target’s website, Target gives Ebates a percentage of what that shopper spent on Target’s website – essentially, a sales commission. Ebates then gives part of that commission to the shopper.[2] In closing I would say that ECommerce for retail (shopping online) has been and will continue to be a huge growth engine and money maker for retailers. With rents and lease prices going up it only make sense that this is direction retailers are moving and with new ways to advertise through social media and search engines, and options for great deals, it seems this is the way things will continue to move and be the way of the future. In a report subtitled “Understanding the changing consumer”, Accenture observes, “Consumers are increasingly ‘connected’ - often online, interacting with companies and other consumers to research and purchase products, share advice, and praise or criticize a business. Nearly three-quarters of the consumers surveyed said they use the internet to research or purchase products or services more than they did three years ago. Consumers are also increasingly using social media as a tool in the purchasing process.” [3] 1. http://apparel.edgl.com/case-studies/E-commerce--Trends-That-Will-Shape-201385390 2. http://www.moneytalksnews.com/2012/03/20/how-to-get-paid-to-shop/ 3. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/9821702/The-future-of-shopping-from-high-street-to-iStreet.html